Busting North-South Stereotypes

The euro-zone debt crisis has underlined one of Europe’s more enduring stereotypes, namely the division between the hard-working Northern countries versus the lazy South. And these stereotypes have to some degree filtered into the European Union’s policy debate over how to respond to the debt crisis.

But the reality is more complicated than this: recently bailed-out Ireland, for example, does not appear to be in southern Europe. Excluding that inconvenient fact, there are other problems with the hard-working-North-versus-lazy-South narrative.